


and every sword sang for your blood

by xahra99



Series: Odyssey [4]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Desert Island, Desert Island Fic, Drama, Gen, Marooned, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xahra99/pseuds/xahra99
Summary: 1712. Jack, Anne and Vane get themselves into a spot of trouble. Pre-series. Complete.Part four of an eight-part series





	and every sword sang for your blood

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here it is, the fic series nobody asked for for a programme that finished last year because I like to watch entire series on Amazon rather than waiting for each episode to come out. Part four of eight Black Sails character studies/missing scenes. Jack, Anne and Vane pretty much write themselves and I had a blast writing this. Strangely enough, there are no warnings for this one! Logwood is a tree species native to South America and the Caribbean islands and widely prized for its ability to produce strong black dyes. Jack's flag aside, black dyes were really quite rare during this period in history. It made sense to me that Vane might know about logwood, given his canon backstory (this all takes place a year or two after my Charles Vane fic 'all the world is nameless' where Vane kills the Whydah's captain, Sam Bellamy.) Plus, this fandom needs more plotty Jack/Anne/Charles adventures!  
> The title quotes are from the Odyssey, from both Emily Wilson's and the Penguin translation (in one case both) because I'm a massive geek.

“If fifty bands of men surrounded us, and every sword sang for your blood, still you would make off with their cows and sheep.”-The Odyssey.

 

An adventure with Rackham, Anne, and Vane.

 

Rackham: “I think Charles Vane is something you and I survived.”

 

_Somewhere near Nassau, 1712._

 

 “Cheer up,” Jack says. “We’ve been in worse scrapes than this.”

Anne tips her hat across her face to shade her nose from the midday sun. The rays are fierce enough to scorch her redhead’s skin in minutes. “Name one.”

“I do admit that I can’t think of any,” concedes Rackham. He shades his eyes and peers miserably out across the bay to the stretch of open sea where the _Whydah_ waits for them. Bellamy’s old ship is modest by the _Ranger’s_ standards, but she still has six guns and carries forty men. Between the _Whydah_ and the coral cay where Jack, Anne and Vane currently reside stretches an expanse of jagged coral reefs and limestone boulders that prevents the _Whydah_ ’s boats from landing. “In a few hours the tide will rise high enough to float our launch, and then Bellamy’s crew will land and kill us all.” He frowns at Vane. “They wouldn’t go to so much trouble to kill Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny.”

“Mm.”

“This is all your fault. You shouldn’t have killed Bellamy.”

“He deserved it.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” agrees Jack. “But consider for a moment that if you had refrained, we would most likely not be in this position.”  

Anne shifts. Her elbow jabs into Jack’s ribs in a way that could be an accident, but Jack knows is a warning, a silent _shut up, Jack_. He heeds her warning.

Vane shows no sign that he has noticed the movement. He shrugs. “They won’t come tonight.”

“What?”

“They’ll wait a while. Another day. Maybe two. For us to weaken. Before they come ashore.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s what I would do.”

Jack scratches his nose. Vane has his matted hair and Anne her hat, but the sun is boiling what’s left of his wits. “Why don’t they just shoot us?”

“They want to be sure,” growls Vane. Jack understands. Vane has a well-deserved reputation for brutal violence against anyone who crosses him. Bellamy’s old crew will want to make sure he is dead. Jack and Anne will be collateral damage.

Vane reaches into his shirt, pulls out a whetstone laced on a leather thong and begins to hone his cutlass.  Anne’s eyes dart towards the blade. She stares at Vane’s sword like it’s a glass of water. Her fists clench on empty air. Her scabbards are empty, swords lost in the desperate chase that led them to this deserted isle.

Jack knows that Anne will make a better showing than he ever would once the _Whydah_ ’s crew land, armed only with a sharpened stick or her bare hands. Still, he admits that their prospects are limited. Vane and Anne will fight to the death, but Jack has no such resolve.

He regards them both fondly. Jack and Vane are so far from rivals that they have circumnavigated the globe of acquaintance and become something like friends, if pirate captains can be considered capable of such sentiments as friendship. Anne and Jack are partners, perfect opposites. They make a good pair; Jack, who never uses one word where five -or even better, six- will do, and taciturn Anne, who outstrips with the sword any man Jack could name.

Anne curls her lip at the _Whydah_ floating in the bay. “They won’t take us alive.”

“Speak for yourself.” Jack adjusts his cuffs. Their situation, dire though it might be, is no excuse to look dishevelled. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man stranded upon an island must be in want of a method of escape, so he surveys their surroundings and takes stock of their assets.

They are is in possession of one island, three pirates (well, two and one-half pirates), one island (uninhabited until very recently, and suitable only for the purpose of marooning) a stand of scraggly trees, their small launch, (which will last no more than a moment against the _Whydah’s_ guns), and a battered, rusting whaling pot, large enough for a decent cannibal feast, Should they wish to sacrifice one of their number, Jack has no doubt who’ll be first on the menu. He likes to think that Anne will refuse to eat him, but he has his doubts.

The _Whydah_ floats silently offshore as the crew waits for the sun to do their work for them. _Lazy bastards_ , thinks Jack, wishing for every possible ill to befall them. 

Vane scrapes the stone across his cutlass. Jack winces.

“Could you stop that?” he asks Vane. “I’m trying to think.”

Vane raises one scarred eyebrow and continues sharpening the blade.

Jack admits that the sword looks suitably threatening. He wishes they had more than one weapon between them. He doubts Vane will share the blade with Anne. Perhaps they can take turns?

“We should wait until nightfall and slip past them in the dark,” he says. The launch is small and sits low in the water. Her draft will be all the lower with the three of them aboard. It will be risky, but he’s heard of stranger things. They can skirt the reef and head out to sea, then circle back around to Nassau.

Vane gestures with the tip of his cutlass to Jack’s pale clothing. Then he tilts the blade and points out the launch’s white sails. “Don’t you think they’ll already have thought of that? They’ll see us.”

“We could black the sails,” Jack offers.

“What with?” Anne folds her arms across her knees. She’s drawn her legs up to her chest and in her dark clothing resembles nothing more than the rock she rests upon.

Vane shrugs. Jack optimistically interprets his captain’s gesture as hearty encouragement. “Soot,” he says. He still has his flint and steel, or at least he thinks he does. When he reaches into his pocket the steel has vanished, lost who-knows-where amid the vasty deep. Anne dips into her own pocket and hands him a bent piece of metal. They use the dried husks of coconuts as tinder and light a small blaze. Anne gathers driftwood, and Jack toasts the twigs over the flames.

Several hours and many cords of driftwood later, he concludes that the experiment, such as it is, has failed. The launch’s sail is stained a pale grey which might, on an extremely dark night, pass for black, but the soot blows off with every gust of wind.   

“Jesus Christ,” Jack swears. He tosses the sail to the ground and kicks it for good measure. He’s hotter than ever and all his clothes are stained with soot. The tide is rising, and the island shrinking with it. From the size of the trees, he doubts the cay is ever completely flooded, but he has no intention of waiting to find out. “It pains me to admit that I have wasted what may be the last hours of my life on this piece of garbage.”

Vane, who has watched the whole process with mild amusement, stands. Jack thinks for a moment that he’s about to offer some sort of advice, or, God forbid, assistance, but Vane just prowls off into the trees. Jack hears him pushing through the vegetation. Perhaps he’s gone to take a piss.

He pokes mournfully at the fire. “Is it too much to ask for some assistance when it comes to saving all our skins?”

“We need a better fucking plan,” says Anne.

“I realize my plan might not be perfect, but right now it seems it’s all we’ve got. I admit I may not be much good in a fight, but I’m doing what I can, and if we can all put our heads together and just _think_ about this we have a much better chance-” Jack pauses as chopping sounds drift from the trees. “What the fuck is he doing?”

Anne tilts her head. “Perhaps he’s cutting you a spear?”

Jack shakes his head. “He shouldn’t bother. I for one have no intention of putting up a fight.”

The chopping stops abruptly. A few moments later Vane strides out of the trees with something balanced on his shoulder. He comes right up to the fire and tosses a log of dark wood onto the beach.

Sand sprays Jack’s face. He jumps back. “What in God’s name is that?”

“Logwood,” says Vane.

“I can see that,” says Jack, squinting up at Vane, who is outlined in the setting sun and looming even larger than usual. “What I can’t see is how the _hell_ it’s going to help us get off this island.”

Vane stares at Jack as if he is an idiot. “Logwood makes a strong black dye. Boil it in the cauldron with the sails. You’ll need a mordant to set the stain.”

“A mor- _what_?”

“To fix the dye.” Vane gestures to Anne. “Her steel should do. Should take about an hour.”

Jack can’t help but notice that there is no mention of Vane doing any of this work. “How on earth d’you know that?”

Vane scowls. Anne averts her eyes and elbows Jack again. There’s obviously something Anne knows that Jack doesn’t, but if he knows Anne, he’ll never pry it out of her, and if it concerns Vane’s history, then it’s better left unsaid. “I’m sure your scheme will prove effective,” he says diplomatically, gesturing to the battered whaling pot wedged among the rocks. “You better fetch that pot.”

Vane dislodges the pot from the rocks with some difficulty and rolls it along the beach to their makeshift camp.  Jack re-lights the fire. He uses the sail as a basket to fill the cauldron with seawater. Then he adds the sail, the log, and Anne’s steel, feeling like a very incompetent cook. He hopes Vane’s right about the _Whydah_ waiting another day to rush them.

Jack does not suggest to Anne that she participate in the proceedings, though after a while she rises to her knees, pushes Jack aside, and takes a turn stirring the pot. Her face flushes in the steam. Strands of ginger hair stick to her cheeks. Jack finds the sight terribly appealing. If it wasn’t for the heat and the prospect of relatively sudden death, he’d suggest they slope off into the woods for a quick fuck.

But Jack has work to do.

Vane sits by the fire and whets his sword while the pot boils. His cutlass has taken quite the beating from its temporary use as an axe. Jack hopes Vane can sharpen the blade in time, in case his logwood plan does not work.  He takes a certain comfort in the fact that they have at least one sword between them. If all else fails, perhaps he can slit his own throat.

To Jack’s surprise, the sail emerges from the pot an hour later stained a fine dark sable that does not wash, brush, or blow off. The results of his labour will never grace any dyer’s workshop, but the sail is good enough. It will serve.

Vane rigs up the launch. “Told you so.”

Jack scoffs. “They’ll hear us rowing,” he says, stripping off his jacket as the sun sinks low behind the _Whydah’s_ masts.  “We’ll need something to muffle the oars.”

The canvas resists his attempts to tear it into strips. Anne elbows him out of the way and tries herself, tearing at the fabric with the blunt remains of her nails until Vane steps in and offers up his sword. Vane’s cutlass shears through Jack’s coat like a knife through fat despite all Jack’s private doubts about the weapon’s sharpness.

Jack binds the strips of tattered fabric around the launch’s rowlocks to muffle any sound. They quench the fire with seawater and leave the pot, creaking as it cools, behind on the beach. It’s full dark by the time they are ready to board. The _Whydah_ is so close that Jack can see the night watch’s lanterns twinkling on her decks.  The lights of Nassau town sparkle in the distance behind the outline of the ship.    

They push the boat out into the surf and leap aboard. The launch rocks as it bounds through the surf, though the ride smooths out as they reach deeper water. If anybody’s watching, they are being remarkably subtle about the whole matter. Pirates being what they are, Jack surmises that nobody is watching.

Jack and Vane each take an oar and head straight for the ship. Vane has lobbied for this course, pointing out that it is the route the _Whydah_ ’s crew will least expect. Jack has argued that this is because heading directly for the ship that’s trying to kill them is pure suicide. Anne listens to them quarrel, and when they’re done she just shrugs and says, “Let’s do it.”

Jack shrinks down in his seat, sliding lower and lower as they near the _Whydah_ ’s battered hull. The ship creaks as she turns in the current, pulling at her anchor-cable. The tide is rising fast. Soon their little island will be much smaller than it was. Jack can count individual planks in the hull as they round the hull. He peers nervously up at the great looming bulk of the ship. There is no sign that anybody has noticed their slow passage. He’s feeling decidedly optimistic until Vane growls “Stop.”

Jack squints up at the _Whydah_ ’s shrouded masts. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“Don’t much care,” says Vane as he pulls off his boots. He takes up his sword and slides into the water with barely a ripple, sinking until only his dark head is visible. “Wait here.”

Jack sighs and ships the oars. He considers arguing, but he knows from long experience that there is nothing in the world that can stop Charles Vane once he’s set upon a course. He tries to follow Vane’s sleek head among the waves but loses sight of him within a few moments.

 “We could go,” Anne says neutrally.

Jack shrugs. There are sharks in the water, but right now there is nothing in the ocean more dangerous than Charles Vane. “Wouldn’t risk it,” he says, wondering what exactly Vane is up to.

Whatever Vane is doing, it doesn’t take him long. Before Jack has taken half a hundred breaths Vane’s arm rises from the sea like a scarred and tattooed Lady of Shalot. Jack jumps. Anne doesn’t. Vane flings his cutlass into the bottom of the boat and hauls himself aboard. He drags one hand across his tangled hair and shakes himself like a dog.

“All done.” he says as Anne shields herself from the spray with her hat. “Let’s go.”

It takes no more than a moment for Jack’s curiosity to outweigh caution. “What did you do?”

Vane shrugs. “I cut the anchor cable. With luck the ship will drift and hole herself upon the rocks.”

“And without luck? Let us face the truth. We have not been exactly fortunate of late.”

“Might slow them down a bit. But that’s not all.” Vane reaches down into his shirt, steadying himself against the rocking boat with the ease of long practice, and pulls out a bundle of fabric that he’s tucked into his belt. He tosses the soaked bundle to Jack, and Jack unfolds the cloth carefully. The feel of the cloth between his fingers reminds him of hours spent in his father’s shop folding cloth as a boy-though none of his father’s calicoes were ever marked with the Jolly Roger. Jack spreads out the flag and sees three small white skull-and crossbones marching across the fabric in a line.

Vane has stolen Bellamy’s old flag.

Not a fatal blow, to be sure, but a humiliation for the _Whydah_ ’s crew, and given their situation, a better blow than they could have ever hoped to strike.

“Ha!” Jack exclaims. He wants to wave the flag above their heads, to lash it to their mast, to proclaim to the world that together they are the best pirates who ever lived, that they’re unstoppable.  Prudence curbs his tongue, but he cannot resist the slow grin spreading across his face. Vane’s expression does not change, but Jack senses a certain satisfaction in the set of his shoulders.

Jack throws the flag to Anne, who wraps herself in the damp cloth, a pirate queen. “Less talk, Jack,” she hisses from the bows. “More rowing.”

Vane sits down on the centre thwart and takes the right-hand oar. Jack takes the left, and together they begin to pull towards the shore.

***

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Why not check out some of my other finely-crafted fics? Next up: graphic eighteenth century surgery. What's not to like?


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